Drop in tax, no drop in services!

Astley Village Parish Council has lowered its portion of the Council Tax for the coming year without cutting services for its services but including some new projects around the village.

The Parish Council set its annual precept budget for 2010/11 recently at its December Council meeting. ( Precept is the money which the Parish Council requires to carry out its plans and is collected by Chorley Borough Council from residents in the Council Tax bills).

For the coming financial year the Parish Council has added to its services for residents without raising the precept budget, but lowering it. Last year an average band D property (for example) paid £21.34 for the Parish Council element of Council Tax. This next year this has been lowered to approximately £20 for an average band D property.

Over the past few years the Parish Council has improved the village by becoming proactive and taking on board various projects to tackle concerns voiced by residents. It provides a litter picking service for all parts of the village, it utilises a Speed Indicator Device (SpID) to combat speeding motorists, holds Christmas celebrations, provide summer flowering baskets and provides others services such as a quarterly newsletter and website information service.

The Parish Council has a number of projects for the coming year, new and ongoing ones such as to improve facilities in the village centre, to expand on brightening up the village with flowers.

In December 2009 the Precept for 2010/2011 was set, which is copied here Precept 2010/2011

For the financial year of 20010/11 the Council will request is approximately £21,840, equating to approx £20 per Band D property.

Precept

The Parish Council obtains its funding from what is known as the precept. This comes from the local element of residents council tax collected by the Borough Council.

Astley Village covers an area of 212 acres and the village has approximately 2,600 electors and population of 3,329 people.

For the financial year of 20010/11 the Council will request is approximately £21,840, equating to approx £20 per Band D property.

Previous financial years can be seen through the links in the right column.

Each year Chorley Borough Council supplies the Parish Council with a figure called the Tax Base. This figures is a calculation of numbers occupied properties paying council tax with some contingencies worked in for bad debtors.

With this figure the Parish Council can work out by dividing the amount it is seeking to get in precept by the tax base figure to give residents an indication of how much they will pay for the parish element of council tax (this is based on a band D property).

In December 2009 the Precept for 2010/2011 was set, which is copied here Precept 2010/2011

In January 2009 the Precept for 2009/2010 was set, which is copied here Precept 2009/2010

In November 2007 the Precept for 2008/9 was set, which is copied here Precept 2008/2009

In late 2006 the Precept for 2007/8 was set, which is copied here Precept 2007/2008